The Lifting of a Finger/Chapter 13

AS time went on Margaret proved that she meant what she had said. She never questioned her husband's movements; he came and went as he pleased, and sometimes did not see his wife for days. When they did meet her manner was invariably pleasant, and if Bellamy happened to be at home at meal-time he found his wife willing to talk or ready to sit silent if he chanced to be in a morose mood and disinclined for conversation.

As soon as the weather grew warm Margaret went away with her mother. During her absence she heard but seldom from her husband. She knew that he took a flying trip abroad, and once he ​surprised her by coming to spend a week in the seaside place she and Mrs. Winthrop were then visiting, but his wife saw little of him during his stay, and he left suddenly without saying good-by.

Cool weather came, and Margaret returned to town and settled down for the winter in her new home. Francis also came back, and all things were as they had been before the flitting.

From the line of carriages he often saw before the door Bellamy inferred that Margaret's marriage had made no difference in her social position, but he rarely encountered any of her guests, and all her entertainments took the form of affairs at which the presence of a host was not necessary.

He wondered sometimes how much ​news of him reached her ears. He had no doubt that many tales of his doings were carried home by Jack Winthrop and repeated by her mother to Margaret. But whatever Margaret heard, she made no sign.

One day Francis, who was asleep on a lounge in a curtained recess in the library, was awakened by the voices of Margaret and her mother on the other side of the curtain.

"I know you have forbidden me to say a word against your husband, Margaret," Mrs. Winthrop was saying plaintively, "but I feel that I must speak. That man's wild life—the way he drinks and gambles, and the women with whom he spends his time—is the talk of the town. The men we know will have nothing to do with him, and ​Jack says they speak of you in tones of hushed pity. I have told you all this before, and yet I don't believe you have spoken a word of remonstrance to him."

"No," said Margaret, "I have not, and I do not mean to. He is not unkind to me, so why should I interfere with him? It is of no consequence to me what he does or where he spends his time."

"But I should think you would long to see him changed," protested her mother. "It may be that this marriage was arranged by Providence and it is your mission to reform your husband. You have beauty and charm enough to touch the heart of any man, and perhaps by making him love you, you could accomplish wonders with ​him. It may be that he cares for you a little already: you say he is not unkind to you, and I've noticed that his eyes follow you constantly."

Bellamy heard a low laugh from Margaret. "My dear mother," she responded, "My husband is not unkind to me because I do not get in his way, but I assure you he has as little affection for me as I have for him. As to trying to make him care for me, I shall never do that. I prefer a loveless life to the love of a man like him."

There was a rustling of silk as Mrs. Winthrop rose. "You used to be like other girls, Margaret," she said, "but I don't pretend to understand you any more. I was telling your father so the other day, and he said that suffering was very apt to make an enigma of a ​woman. Life is a disappointment anyway," Margaret's mother went on; "I used to hope for so much for you, and now I am unhappy about you all the time."

"You need not be," Margaret said quickly. "I am not unhappy, mother; indeed, I am quite content."

"I should think you would feel ashamed of your husband."

"Perhaps I should be if I cared more for him," Bellamy heard Margaret say as she followed her mother from the room.

He lay with closed eyes, thinking over what he had heard. Truly he had what he had wished for in a wife—indifference.

After this incident Francis found that his wife's indifference irritated rather than pleased him. He began to wish ​that she would interfere with him in order that he might have the pleasure of opposing her, and he fell into the habit of annoying her in little ways in an effort to disturb her composure, but all his endeavors in this direction left his wife unruffled.

"I don't believe she has any temper," Bellamy said to himself one day; "and a woman without a temper is—the only creature worse than a woman with one."

Not long after this, on entering the house one afternoon Bellamy found Margaret seated in the hall with a caller, and some impulse prompted him to pause and be introduced to the guest. Miss Sinclair was a vivacious young woman who prided herself on her cleverness and wit, and Francis was drawn ​into a battle of words with her. In the attempt to be brilliant his antagonist soon got beyond her depth, and he amused himself by having a little fun at her expense.

While Bellamy led the guest on to make the most absurd speeches, quite unconscious of the fact that she was being held up to ridicule, his wife sat by in silence, but after Miss Sinclair had taken her departure Margaret came back to her husband.

"In future," she said, her voice clear as the note of a bell on frosty air, "you will please show more courtesy to my guests."

Francis leaned back and surveyed his wife, his eyes mirthful, his mouth insolent. "How imperious we are!" he exclaimed. "And suppose I refuse 'in ​future to please show more courtesy to my guests,'"—he mimicked her tone,—"have you thought out what you will do?"

An angry light burned a moment in Margaret's eyes, then died. "No," she replied calmly, "I have not. I have never found you unjust, and it did not occur to me that you would refuse."

After staring at her for a brief space, Bellamy broke into a roar of laughter. "Now what can I do in the face of such a speech?" he cried. "A clever woman, if she has tact, can outwit the devil himself."